Subaru partnership
Grand Auto Mart will soon start selling Subaru cars in a partnership with Ward Muscatell Subaru of Moorhead.
Does this mean that we can forget about that new Subaru dealership south of the Big Sioux Travel Plaza we've been hearing about? If so, that's a shame. It would have been nice to see a brand new car dealership out there.
Update - 9/19/2006 - 10:15 AM
BTW, has anybody heard anything further on the rumored sale of Hansen Ford?
Update - 9/28/2006 - 11:28 AM
Grand Auto Mart is being renamed "Grand Subaru".
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I am told that the transition is soon to take place at Hansen's- like a week or two from now.. Plenty of disgruntled employees (not the gun-toting kind), because no information is forthcoming from the new owners. Lithia Ford is what I heard the name to be. Their web site has them in South Dakota, Montana, and Nebraska, among others.
Apparently all the Hansen employees are being fired and forced to reapply. I think this may be a fairly common practice when one company purchases another.
Hansen is definately being sold, or has been sold, to an out of state company.
It would've been nice for some additional commercial property to develop west of I-29. I know it stinks for the Hansen Ford employees, it is common practice by companies to make all employees reapply.
I'm already mentally calling this dealership Lita Ford.
Kiss me deadly!
I wonder how much it costs to buy Hansen Ford. The Hansen family must be rolling in it...
BTW, as vcsuvike said, it is pretty common to make employees reapply when a business is sold. I heard that everyone at Columbia Mall (even mall manager Bill Reid) had to reapply when GK Development purchased the mall.
In a way, I would have rather seen someone like the Rydells buy Hansen Ford. It would have been nice to keep the dealership locally owned.
Don't the Rydells have 2 dealerships already? That would be a huge monopoly. The Rydells house is too big. It's good that someone else is buying Hansen. Or am I thinking of the other guys?
Rydell has all the GM dealerships in town now- that happened when Eide went to selling Suzukis exclusively. They also own Honda/Nissan/Cartiva. That's probably enough for one city. Although I would be a little worried about owning any Ford or GM dealership right about now.
Say what you want about Grand Auto Mart- if they can make the Subaru thing go, they will have a fanatically loyal customer base if they treat them right. Something about those weird little cars inspires loyalty that borders on irrational.
The Rydells own several dealerships in town and literally a couple dozen dealerships scattered across the county (these people must be the richest in town). The only reason I said I would have liked to have seen the Rydells buy Hansen Ford is because it would be nice to have the dealership stay locally owned and the Rydells would certainly have the money (and the experience).
As far as their home, I heard it cost around $4 million. That must be the most expensive house in the state, huh?
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